Perhaps a professional wrestling motif fits.
Sadly, it’s not entertaining, in the least, and people really are being harmed as the latest round in the fight between pro “Legend” Donald Trump and Maine Governor Janet Mills (D) ends and a new one begins.
As Amber Harding reports for Outkick News, Maine’s political class again has hoisted the flag of defiance, this time thumbing their noses at a Trump Department of Education (DOE) Title IX compliance mandate that would bar biological males from competing in girls’ sports.
On this troubling matter, Trump and Mills last month sparred in the White House, with Trump telling a defiant Mills that if she did not make the schools and state-subsidized colleges (both categories, federally subsidized, as well) comply, he would withhold federal funds from Maine and “see you in court” over it. He gave her a deadline of March 29 to positively respond.
Now, the deadline is up, and Mills, the Maine Department of Education (MDOE), the Maine Principals’ Association (MPA), and Greely High School have all said, “Nah, we’re good,” risking a showdown not only with the DOE, but with the Department of Justice (DOJ). It’s a flashpoint story, replete with sexual preferences and pathologies embraced by public schools -- but peel back the layers, and you’ll find a rancid core of unconstitutional meddling and a textbook case of the Tragedy of the Commons, courtesy of the feds seizing your tax dollars and Maine forcing its citizens to fund the corrupt system, as well.
Let’s start with the feds. The Trump administration in February issued a nation-wide order to keep boys out of girls’ sports, claiming it to be a Title IX (of the 1972 federal Education Amendments Act) mandate to protect “fairness" for female students. Then, on February 21, the DOE launched an investigation after a trans-identifying male snagged a girls’ high school pole-vaulting title in Maine. Finding the state in violation, they demanded compliance within 10 days or face the loss of federal funds.
Maine’s response? A collective shrug, citing the state’s Human Rights Act, which they say forbids them from signing on to Trump’s edict. Now, the feds are rattling sabers, threatening DOJ action.
Sounds like a classic state-federal tug-of-war, right? But here’s the kicker: the Department of Education shouldn’t even exist. Nowhere in the Constitution—y’know, that dusty old document supposed to limit government—does it grant the federal government any power to meddle in education. The Tenth Amendment slams the door shut: powers not delegated to the feds are reserved to the states or the people. Education? That’s a state gig, or better yet, a private one. Yet here we are, with a federal agency born of Jimmy Carter’s 1979 overreach, now playing puppet master with billions in taxpayer cash, dictating terms to local schools. Unconstitutional? You bet. But don’t expect the Beltway crowd to admit it—they’re too busy counting your money and offering lip service about “efficiency.”
And that money is the poison and the leverage, regardless of how one might feel about the absurd notion of boys pretending to be girls in girls’ sports.
Federal funding—sucked from taxpayers coast to coast—creates a Tragedy of the Commons that forces multitudes to “chip in” to a government-run system, and from which not everyone can get what he - or she - wants. Mainers who support girls-only sports? Tough luck. Folks cheering for trans inclusion? Same deal. And that applies to all Americans, since the US Department of Education wraps its tentacles around everyone.
The tax trough turns education into a political Thunderdome, where rival factions slug it out for control, and the losers still pay. It’s not a marketplace of ideas; it’s a coerced monopoly where dissenters are shackled to the majority’s whim—or, worse, the feds’ fiat.
Maine’s defiance highlights the mess. The MPA says signing the agreement would violate state law, which protects so-called “gender identity” in sports. Governor Mills has no intention of bowing to Trump’s EO, even as the feds dangle hundreds of millions in funding over the state’s head. If education were privatized -- or at least left to local control -- this wouldn’t be a cage match. Parents and communities could set their own rules, and no one’s wallet would be held hostage.
Related: 'It's Sort of Easy to Answer': Leftists Can't Define a 'Woman' - But Trump Just Did
The MDOE, MPA, and Greely High aren’t just fighting Trump—they’re fighting the very system that entangles them. Federal funds -- $187,000 of which the feds want repaid, with hundreds of millions more that might never arrive -- tie Maine to Washington’s strings. Accept the cash, and you dance to their tune. Refuse, and you’re still taxed to prop up the beast.
Harding notes:
“Maine Rep. Laurel Libby, who was censured by the Maine House of Representatives for speaking out against the participation of transgender athletes in girls' sports, said she's disappointed in Governor Janet Mills, the MPA and Maine Democrats.
‘Governor Janet Mills, Speaker Ryan Fecteau, and the rest of Maine's Democrat Majority have chosen an extremist agenda over sanity, ignoring the rights and safety of Maine women and girls,’ Libby said in a statement to OutKick. ‘Despite countless pleas from their constituents and warnings from President Trump, Maine Democrats continue to force our girls to compete against biological males, effectively erasing them.’”
And Libby added:
"As a result of their refusal to comply with President Trump's Executive Order and protect Maine girls, they will inevitably have to face the warranted repercussions from the Department of Justice, recklessly risking hundreds of millions in federal funding for Maine students."
In this not-so-sporting battle, everyone is a casualty when the state’s the referee.
So, what’s the fix? Scrap the Department of Education - for real. End ALL federal education funding. Let states, or better yet, individuals, decide. Maine could fund its schools without Uncle Sam’s leash, and parents could choose systems that match their values—no forced consensus, no DOJ threats. The Constitution demands it, and reason screams for it. Until then, this Title IX farce is just another act in the tragic play of government overreach, where the commons collapses under the weight of coercion, and liberty’s left bleeding on the sidelines.